Shenzhen Children’s palace
Client: Shenzhen Municipality
This gallery is intended to expand a child’s knowledge and view of the world in order to help them enjoy life and contribute to today’s rapidly changing environment. It is broadly set in a child’s world to ensure relevance and relates exciting activities to the individual’s experience.
It complements the other galleries in the centre that explore other aspects of life today in more detail with a play centred learning space for younger children.
The Children’s Gallery is divided into three themed zones around a central welcome zone. The City Welcome zone is a multi purpose space for briefing classes of children or for children and carers to play together in an informal setting. It includes spaces and activities for very young children and a climbing structure and taster exhibits linking conceptually to three clearly themed zones.
The intention is to learn by doing, to expand young people’s experiences and to explore new ideas. The three scenarios are framed as adventures to emphasise their novelty and to provide a sense of challenge. Together they make up a picture of the world to help develop children’s imaginations to see the world differently.
The forest environment in Fantastic Forest Adventure provides multiple opportunities to explore and investigate nature. City Adventure looks at life in the cities and how they work, providing knowledge and understanding for those from both rural and urban environments. Future Adventures investigates developments in robotics, space exploration and new technologies through multi-sensory experiences and creativity.
All the zones have a range of exhibits and activities addressing different learning styles and intelligences but each one has a different focus.
Fantastic Forest Adventure focusses on physical activity and children’s growing abilities to climb, jump and run but it also encourages exploration of the natural world and comparison between the lives of different animals and plants.
City Adventure is filled with activities centred around the world of buildings and technology with open ended experiences that encourage curiosity and experiment.
Future Adventure creates encounters with imaginary worlds and creates a framework for children to build their own imaginative stories and scenarios.